First pole position of the season for title defender René Rast

Stuttgart. The title defender is back: At the wheel of his Porsche 911 GT3 Cup, René Rast secured pole position at round three of the Porsche Mobil1 Supercup in Monaco. Last year at the prestigious race in the Principality on the Cote d’Azur, the German, who drives for VELTINS Lechner Racing, scored pole position and went on to claim victory. Britain’s Nick Tandy (Konrad Motorsport) set the second quickest lap with a 0.313 second gap to the pole-sitter.

Putting in another strong performance, Kuba Giermaziak has underlined his talent. On the demanding city circuit, the VERVA Racing pilot from Poland repeated his qualifying result from Barcelona and planted his Porsche on the third grid spot. With this, he relegated the British points’ leader Sean Edwards from the Abu Dhabi by tolimit squad to take up Sunday’s race from fourth – one row in front of his Dutch teammate Jeroen Bleekemolen. Lining up alongside the double Supercup champion, who like Sean Edwards lives in Monaco, is his brother Sebastiaan Bleekemolen (Team Bleekemolen). Sixth in qualifying is his best result so far this season.

Securing seventh on the grid, Slovakia’s Stefan Rosina (VERVA Racing Team) starts from the fourth row with Supercup newcomer Kévin Estre (France) from Hermes Attempto Racing, who put in another brilliant drive. Austria’s Norbert Siedler (VELTINS Lechner Racing) occupied ninth place in front of Supercup record winner and Team Bleekemolen pilot, Patrick Huisman from the Netherlands. At his premiere on the difficult city circuit, the Supercup rookie from Austria, Mathias Lauda, again scored a commendable qualifying result: The son of ex-Formula 1 world champion Niki Lauda planted his Konrad Motorsport Austria Porsche 911 GT3 Cup on 15th position.

René Rast (pole sitter): “It’s a great feeling to be back on pole. The qualifying session was exciting, which is par for the course in Monaco. We had a lot of traffic on the track. I was much faster with my second set of tyres than with the first and I’m feeling very optimistic about my chances in the race. To start from pole in Monaco has a greater advantage than on any other track on the calendar.”

Nick Tandy (second in qualifying): “It’s very important to start from the first row in Monaco, so I’m very pleased with my qualifying result. We only narrowly missed out on pole. I was very quick in a couple of laps, especially in the first two sectors, but you’re lucky if you escape the traffic here without a hitch. It’s a shame we weren’t fast enough for pole today.”

Kuba Giermaziak (third in qualifying): “That was a very good qualifying. I didn’t actually think we’d do so well on such a difficult track. Like in Barcelona, we showed that we’re fast during free practice, but still we were a little surprised with third place. We’re heading into the race feeling confident. If I can also score third in the race we’ll all be very happy.”